Blogs for those without Internet Access

Colleagues,

Generally incarcerated people don't have live access to the Internet (including email). The only example I know of where they do is in a jail in Syracuse New York where inmates have supervised access to education-related web sites. What I just became aware of, however, is that through the Between the Bars project, http://betweenthebars.org/blogs/  people who are incarcerated, and without Internet access, can also blog.

This is achieved through hand-written or keyboard-written letters that are then posted by someone who ahs Internet access as graphic images on a blog page. Readers can also pen or type responses this way, and these are posted as replies. It's an amazingly simple and inclusive use of technology. Beyond that, it recognizes, perhaps even embraces, hand written forms of communication. As I read these posts and replies, the personality of the writers came across through their handwriting, something that -- before typewriters and now computers changed most hand-written letters into email -- I used to enjoy.

If we want to promote reading and writing -- and include those who do not have easy access to computers, or who cannot type well -- perhaps a blog that mixes "fast and slow media" (as Eric Jacobson refers to this in his 2012 book Adult Basic Education in the Age of New Literacies) is a good solution.

Fast and slow media blogs may also be part of the solution for how to promote a culture of reading in countries where no learners have access to the Internet, but some teachers do and would be willing to scan and upload what students write to each other. 

Has anybody here used  Between the Bars or done something else with a mix of fast and slow media?

David J. Rosen

djrosen123@gmail.com